6.857: Computer and Network Security

Selected Projects

Below are a selected projects and presentations. If you would like to have your project posted (and we hope you will), please send your slides to the TAs.

• BitTAKA: Anonymous BitTorrent. By Tural Badirkhanli, Amrik Kochhar, Albert Ni, and Kuat Yessenov. [slides | paper]
• Stronger Hash Functions Through Block Shuffling. By Elizabeth Reid, Chris Wilkens, and Christina Wright. [slides | paper]

Project ideas

One source of ideas for your final project might be Phillip Hallam-Baker's new book, The dotCrime Manifesto. Hallam-Baker has compiled a short list of potential projects related to the book. We encourage you to take a look at this page and consider the suggested projects.

Individual Project Ideas

Click here to view the individual ideas for the Term Project. Use these for inspiration or to help find like-minded people to work with. The page is in the protected area, so you will need to use the same username and password used to access to the problem set solutions.

Topics from Previous Years

• SmartBoard -- Encrypted BBS with Secure Server
• Secure Message Passing for High-Performance Distributed Computing
• Security and Usability of Card-Based Ciphers
• Security Policy and Mechanisms for Electronic Personal Health Records
• NetWatch: Taking Back the Internet
• Analyzing Network Traffic from a Class B Darknet
• Flingetty: Secure Multiparty Computation for a Dating Match-up System
• Quantum Cryptography: A Viability and Security Analysis
• Proposed Standard for DVD Security
• Secure Peer-to-Peer Backup Systems
• Anonymous Routing in a Peer-to-Peer Network
• eSnack
• Analysis of Password Recovery Schemes
• Secure Corporate IM
• An Incentives-based Framework for Secure Peer-to-Peer Media
• Continual Authentication with Keystroke Dynamics
• Enhanced User Authentication Through Keystroke Biometrics
• Two Perspectives on PGP Usability
• An Investigation of Current Methodologies in Buffer Overflow Attack and Prevention
• The Security of Time
• User Tracking on Trusting Networks
• SEC: SSH like client
• A Secure Media Distribution Framework
• How to Make the User Authentication Process in MS Passport More Secure
• Blinded Distributed Computing
• Security of Wireless Networks and Mobile Devices
• Cracking Digital Satellite TV
• User Authentication in Cryptographic File Systems
• Steganography in Spam
• Proactive Cryptography Applications in Smart Cards
• Execution-Based Software Protection
• Steganography in TCP timestamps
• Rethinking Software Piracy: Active Software Rights Verification for Effective Control of Piracy
• Reputation-Based Certificate Authorities
• Cookie authentication
• Analyzing the Security of 802.11 Wireless Networks
• Threshold Signatures and Open Source
• Honeypots
• Security and Privacy Issues of Microsoft Passport
• Security Aspects of Unicode
• Digital Signatures for Physical Mail
• Differential Fault Analysis of RC5
• Secure Instant Messengers
• A Review of AES Candidates
• A Payword Implementation
• An Analysis of TIMEBOMB
• Purple: Japanese ciphers in WWII
• Identity Theft
• Approaches to MIXNets
• SmartCards: Back from the Dead
• Payment via GSM Mobile phones
• Digital Multimedia Copyright Protection
• Security Analysis of Electronic Postage Systems
• Security of Network Attached Storage
• Software Bugging
• Design of a secure Pilot-based Authentication System
• Intrusion Detection Systems
• Cellular Telephone Security
• A Computer Testing System
• Copyright Protection Mechanisms in DVD + divx
• CGI Security Issues
• Network Access Controls
• Digital Money-- Fault Tolerant Multibank System
• Security Policy Models
• An Overview of Biometric Technologies and their Real World Applications
• Netbook
• Secure Sockets Layer 3.0: Overiew and Analysis
• Secure Perfectly Forward Secure Email Wizard
• Cryp: An All-or-Nothing Encryption Scheme for Secure Multi-user Information Distribution
• Frosty the Random Number Generator
• Impact of Quantum Theory on Cryptography
• Cartemis:Secure Electronic Wallet Technology
• Preventing Media Piracy
• Netscape's "What's Related" Service and Privacy/Security Issues
• Secure Electronic Poker
• PGP vs S/MIME
• A Study of SSH
• ATM A trusted machine?
• Secure Mobile Code Framework
• Pseudonyms and Credential Transfer
• Electronic Payment Schemes
• eCheck:A Safety-Oriented Electronic Check Scheme
• Computing with Encrypted Data
• Receipt-Free Secure Elections
• A well-hidden module for remote control of Linux machines
• The feasibility of quantum computation
• Network Security for Chat Programs
• Electronic Voting
• New MIT Card
• MIT Tech Cash
• Peer-to-Peer Security
• Anti-spam techniques
• Designing Graphical Password Schemes
• A survey of the meaning of trust across websites and a trust recommendation system to promote safe surfing
• Web site verification
• Designing a ``Really Nasty'' Rogue Wireless Access Point
• A Study of MIT Information Systems
• Time-Lapse Cryptography
• Client-Side Issues Related to Developing World Anonymity
• Usability and Security of ThreeBallot
• A Security Analysis of Web Browsing With Tor
• Security of Mobile Ad-hoc Networks
• MUSSO: A Multi-User Single Sign-On System
• Practical Physical Authentication for the Web
• MP3 Steganography
• SPP: A Security Protocol for Peer-to-Peer systems

Sample proposal

• Differential Fault Analysis of RC5 (which does not follow this year's directions properly...)
• DFA paper

Hints for writing your paper and giving your talk

• How to make a good paper and talk
• How (and How Not) to Write a Good Systems Paper
• Advice on giving an academic talk
• Sample 10-minute talk [Abstract, PDF, TEX tarball]